As an old Titan System Program Office guy, I’d just as soon end there, but as an old Vandenberg guy I’ll toss in another space anniversary: On this date 5 years ago, the French and U.S. Jason 2 satellite was launched from Vandenberg on a Delta II rocket. Jason 2 was designed to monitor oceanic conditions from space, and was “a cooperative mission involving the French CNES, the European EUMETSAT, and the American NOAA and NASA.”

Asuka, also known as ASTRO-D before launch and ASCA afterward, was a joint mission in which NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology both provided spacecraft components in exchange for observation time with the orbiting telescope. The spacecraft operated normally for over seven years; however,

A solar flare on 14 July 2000 caused heating and expansion of the upper atmosphere, which increased the drag and external torque on ASCA. The attitude was perturbed, so the solar panels lost lock on the Sun, resulting in discharge of the batteries. ASCA reentered the atmosphere on March 2, 2001.

The FLTSATCOM system provided world-wide UHF communications for aircraft, ships, and submarines, with shore-to-fleet broadcast and beyond-line-of-sight capability. A few of its channels were used for emergency action messages and other communications with Strategic Air Command aircraft, the E-3A airborne warning and control (AWACS) aircraft, and so forth.

It placed a cluster of one primary satellite and three smaller sub-satellites (that trailed along at distances of several hundred kilometers) into low polar orbit. This satellite array determined the location of radio and radars transmitters, using triangulation, and the identity of naval units, by analysis of the operating frequencies and transmission patterns.

Fifty years ago today — December 13, 1962 — a Thor Delta rocket out of Vandenberg AFB launched the first set of electronic intelligence (ELINT) spacecraft in the Poppy program.

(Poppy Type II satellite. NRO image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Also known as 1962 Tau Beta (among other names), the Poppy spacecraft were a follow-on to the Galactic Radiation and Background (GRAB) series of ELINT satellites, pictured in this previous blog entry. Several Poppy spacecraft were launched together, in tandem with the Injun 3 instrumentation satellite.

A half-century ago today — January 24, 1962 — a Thor AbleStar rocket out of Cape Canaveral attempted, but failed, to launch a group of five small satellites for the U.S. Navy.

(SOLRAD-1, the precursor to SOLRAD-4. US Navy image.)

The launch was called Composite-1, or “Buckshot,” and intended to launch:

SOLRAD-4 (Solar Radiation or SR-4) — intended to measure and analyze solar emissions, but also incorporating the GREB IV (Galactic Radiation Experimental Background, also known as Galactic Radiation and Background, or GRAB) reconnaissance payload

Yohkoh suffered a spacecraft failure in December 2001 that has put an end to this mission. During the solar eclipse of December 14th the spacecraft lost pointing and the batteries discharged. The spacecraft operators were unable to command the satellite to point toward the sun.

If you have a child interested in such things — or if you yourself have a childlike interest in such things — you can build your own model Yohkoh satellite, using actual satellite blueprints.

And in other space history, on this date 50 years ago the U.S. launched Discoverer-29 on a Thor rocket out of Vandenberg AFB. According to this Wikipedia page, Discoverer-29 was the first of the KH-3 series of reconnaissance satellites launched by the NRO in the Corona program.

Actually, twice more, a few years apart: once for the Soviets, once for us.

Today was quite a busy day in space history: 50 years ago — on January 31, 1961 — the reconnaissance satellite Samos-2 launched from the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range (now part of Vandenberg AFB) , while a few hours earlier Mercury Redstone-2 had launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying Ham the chimpanzee. Ham performed well despite enduring higher g-forces than planned and an accidental cabin depressurization.

But as for the lunar missions …

Five years later, on this date in 1966, the Soviet Union launched Luna-9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Luna-9 was the first craft to successfully make a “soft landing” on the Moon, and sent back several panoramic images of the lunar surface.

But the main event on this day in space history occurred 40 years ago today — January 31, 1971 — when Apollo-14 launched from the Kennedy Space Center carrying astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Stuart A. Roosa, and Edgar D. Mitchell.

(Discoverer-19 “launch cover” postcard, cancelled the day of launch. From the “Unmanned Satellite Philately” site created by Don Hillger and Garry Toth at Colorado State University.)

Part of the CORONA program and listed as an Air Force photoreconnaissance satellite, Discoverer-19 “did not carry a film capsule,” but was launched “as a test for the MIDAS missile-detection system.” MIDAS, the “Missile Detection Alarm System,” was an infrared detection system and precursor to the Defense Support Program and Space-Based Infrared systems.

The National Reconnaissance Office produced an interesting history of MIDAS, declassified in the late 1990s. That history points out that Discoverer-19 carried instruments to measure the background IR radiation emitted by the Earth “to confirm the technical feasibility of the MIDAS concept.”

Fifty years ago today — August 18, 1960 — Discoverer-14 launched from Vandenberg AFB. It was known to the public by that name, but to insiders in what would become the National Reconnaissance Office it was known as CORONA Mission 9009.

Discoverer-14 was the first CORONA mission in which the film canisters were successfully recovered from orbit.

The National Space Science Data Center describes the film recovery process:

Over Alaska on the 17th pass around the earth, the Agena ejected Discoverer 14 from its nose and retrorockets attached to the reentry vehicle fired to slow it for the return from orbit. After Discoverer 14 reentered the atmosphere, it released a parachute and floated earthward. The descending parachute was sighted 360 miles southeast of Honolulu, Hawaii, by the crew of a US Air Force C-119 recovery aircraft from the 6593rd Test Squardon based at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. On the C-119’s third pass over the parachute, the recovery gear trailing behind the aircraft successfully snagged the parachute canopy. A winch operator aboard the C-119 then reeled in the Discoverer after its 27-hour, 450,000 mile journey through space. This was the first successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite and the first aerial recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit.

The NSSDC also notes that “38 Discoverer satellites were launched by February 1962,” although the CORONA project itself continued until 1972. CORONA was declassified in 1995.

Discoverer-13, and indeed the entire Discoverer series of spacecraft, was part of the highly classified CORONA program managed by the National Reconnaissance Office. Discoverer-13 did not take any images itself, however, as it was used to prove that all the systems would work. Discoverer-14 took the program’s first images a few days later.

The Discoverer-13 capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and became the first man-made object recovered from space. The first segment of this YouTube newsreel video shows President Eisenhower being presented with a U.S. flag that flew inside the capsule.